Portal:United States
Parent Portals: Geography / North America / United States
Introduction
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The United States of America is a federal republic of 50 states, a federal district and 14 territories. It is located mostly in central North America. The U.S. has three land borders, two with Canada and one with Mexico, and has sea borders with Cuba, the Bahamas, the Dominican Republic, Bermuda and Russia, and is otherwise bounded by the Pacific Ocean, the Bering Sea, the Arctic Ocean and the Atlantic Ocean. Of the 50 states, only Alaska and Hawaii are not contiguous with any other state. The U.S. also has a collection of districts, territories, and possessions in the Caribbean Sea and Pacific Ocean. Each state has a high level of autonomy according to the system of federalism. The U.S. traces its national origin to the declaration by 13 British colonies in 1776 that they were one free and independent state. They were recognized as such by the Treaty of Paris in 1783. Since then, the nation has grown to become a superpower and exerts a high level of economic, political, military, and cultural influence.
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Mark Ivor Satin (born November 16, 1946) is an American political theorist, writer, and newsletter publisher. He is best known for contributing to the development and dissemination of three political perspectives – neopacifism in the 1960s, New Age politics in the 1970s and 1980s, and radical centrism in the 1990s and 2000s. Satin's work is sometimes seen as building toward a new political ideology, and then it is often labeled "transformational", "post-liberal", or "post-Marxist". One historian calls Satin's writing "post-hip".
After emigrating to Canada at the age of 20 to avoid serving in the Vietnam War, Satin co-founded the Toronto Anti-Draft Programme, which helped bring American war resisters to Canada. He also wrote the Manual for Draft-Age Immigrants to Canada (1968), which sold nearly 100,000 copies. After a period that author Marilyn Ferguson describes as Satin's "anti-ambition experiment", Satin wrote New Age Politics (1978), which identifies an emergent "third force" in North America pursuing such goals as simple living, decentralism, and global responsibility. Satin spread his ideas by co-founding an American political organization, the New World Alliance, and by publishing an international political newsletter, New Options. He also co-drafted the foundational statement of the U.S. Green Party, "Ten Key Values". (Full article...) -
Edmonds station is a train station serving the city of Edmonds, Washington, in the United States. The station is served by Amtrak's Cascades and Empire Builder routes, as well as Sound Transit's N Line, a Sounder commuter rail service which runs between Everett and Seattle. It is located west of Downtown Edmonds adjacent to the city's ferry terminal, served by the Edmonds–Kingston ferry, and a Community Transit bus station. Edmonds station has a passenger waiting room and a single platform.
The station building was opened by the Great Northern Railway in 1957, replacing the city's older depot from 1910. Great Northern merged into Burlington Northern (later BNSF Railway) in 1970; passenger service ceased when Amtrak took over Burlington Northern's passenger routes the following year. Amtrak began operating passenger service from Edmonds station in July 1972 and it has been served by Cascades (originally the Mount Baker International) since 1995. Sound Transit began operating Sounder trains to Edmonds station in December 2003, and later funded a project to rebuild the station and transit center in 2011. The Sound Transit project was conceived after earlier plans to build a combined ferry–rail facility southwest of the city were cancelled in 2008. (Full article...) -
The cutthroat trout (Oncorhynchus sp.) is a clade of four fish species of the family Salmonidae native to cold-water tributaries of the Pacific Ocean, Rocky Mountains, and Great Basin in North America. These four species are the Coastal (O. clarkii), Westslope (O. lewisi), Lahontan (O. henshawi), and the Rocky Mountain (O. virginalis). As a member of the genus Oncorhynchus, it is in the Pacific trout group, which includes the widely distributed rainbow trout. Cutthroat trout are popular gamefish, especially among anglers who enjoy fly fishing. The common name "cutthroat" refers to the distinctive red coloration on the underside of the lower jaw. The specific name clarkii was given to honor explorer William Clark, coleader of the Lewis and Clark Expedition.
Cutthroat trout usually inhabit and spawn in small to moderately large, clear, well-oxygenated, shallow rivers with gravel bottoms. They reproduce in clear, cold, moderately deep lakes. They are native to the alluvial or freestone streams that are typical tributaries of the rivers of the Pacific Basin, Great Basin and Rocky Mountains. Cutthroat trout spawn in the spring and may inadvertently but naturally hybridize with rainbow trout, producing fertile cutbows. Some populations of the coastal cutthroat trout (O. c. clarkii) are semi-anadromous. (Full article...) -
Charles Moss Duke Jr. (born October 3, 1935) is an American former astronaut, United States Air Force (USAF) officer and test pilot. As Lunar Module pilot of Apollo 16 in 1972, he became the tenth and youngest person to walk on the Moon, at age 36 years and 201 days. He is one of four surviving Moon walkers, along with David Scott, Buzz Aldrin and Jack Schmitt.
A 1957 graduate of the United States Naval Academy, Duke joined the USAF and completed advanced flight training on the F-86 Sabre at Moody Air Force Base in Georgia, where he was a distinguished graduate. After completion of this training, Duke served three years as a fighter pilot with the 526th Fighter-Interceptor Squadron at Ramstein Air Base in West Germany. After graduating from the Aerospace Research Pilot School in September 1965, he stayed on as an instructor teaching control systems and flying in the F-101 Voodoo, F-104 Starfighter, and T-33 Shooting Star. (Full article...) -
The 2003 SummerSlam was the 16th annual SummerSlam professional wrestling pay-per-view (PPV) event produced by World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE). It was held for wrestlers from the promotion's Raw and SmackDown! brand divisions. The event took place August 24, 2003, at the America West Arena in Phoenix, Arizona.
Seven professional wrestling matches were set on the event's supercard, a scheduling of multiple high-level matches. The first main event was an Elimination Chamber match, in which World Heavyweight Champion Triple H defeated Chris Jericho, Goldberg, Kevin Nash, Randy Orton, and Shawn Michaels to retain his championship. In the other main event, defending WWE Champion Kurt Angle defeated Brock Lesnar in a standard wrestling match. The undercard included Kane defeating Rob Van Dam in a No Holds Barred match, and Eddie Guerrero defending his United States Championship against Chris Benoit, Rhyno, and Tajiri. There was also a match that occurred on the Sunday Night Heat pre-show. (Full article...) -
Aliso Creek is a 19.8-mile (31.9 km)-long, mostly urban stream in south Orange County, California. Originating in the Cleveland National Forest in the Santa Ana Mountains, it flows generally southwest and empties into the Pacific Ocean at Laguna Beach. The creek's watershed drains 34.9 square miles (90 km2), and it is joined by seven main tributaries. As of 2018, the watershed had a population of 144,000 divided among seven incorporated cities.
Aliso Creek flows over highly erosive marine sedimentary rock of late Eocene to Pliocene age. What would become the Aliso Creek watershed originally lay at the bottom of the Pacific Ocean, before being uplifted as recently as 10 million years ago. About 1.2 million years ago, the San Joaquin Hills began to uplift in the path of Aliso Creek. Occasionally swollen by wetter climates during glacial periods, the creek carved the deep water gap known today as Aliso Canyon, the main feature of Aliso and Wood Canyons Wilderness Park. (Full article...) -
John Silva Meehan (February 6, 1790 – April 24, 1863) was an American publisher, printer, and newspaper editor. He served as the librarian of Congress from 1829 to 1861.
Born in New York City, Meehan worked as a printer in his youth. He briefly served in the U.S. Navy during the last few months of the War of 1812. He returned without seeing combat and began work as a publisher in Philadelphia alongside fellow printer Robert Anderson, publishing a Baptist religious journal. After the firm moved to Washington, D.C., in early 1822, Meehan began editing and publishing the Baptist weekly newspaper The Columbian Star. Leaving the Star in late 1825, Meehan nominally purchased the City of Washington Gazette on direction from Andrew Jackson's presidential campaign, renaming the paper the United States' Telegraph and taking an immensely partisan stance. Jackson supporters considered Meehan unable to properly spearhead the press campaign. Control over the paper gradually shifted towards editor and publisher Duff Green, with Meehan officially leaving the paper in October 1826; however, he continued to serve as Green's editorial assistant until 1829. (Full article...) -
The Political Cesspool is a weekly far-right talk radio show founded by Tennessean political activist James Edwards and syndicated by the organizations Liberty News Radio Network and Accent Radio Network in the United States. First broadcast in October 2004 twice a week from radio station WMQM, per Edwards it has been simulcast on Stormfront Radio, a service of the white nationalist Stormfront website and as of 2011 is broadcast on Saturday nights on WLRM, a blues and southern soul radio station in Millington, Tennessee. Its sponsors include the white separatist Council of Conservative Citizens and the Institute for Historical Review, a Holocaust denial group.
According to its statement of principles, the show stands for the "Dispossessed Majority" and represents "a philosophy that is pro-White." It has attracted criticism—including from The Nation, The New Republic, the Stephen Roth Institute, the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), and the Anti-Defamation League—for its promotion of anti-semitic, white nationalist and white supremacist views. According to the SPLC, the show has featured a "Who's Who of the radical right", including members of the Ku Klux Klan; they say Edwards has probably done more than anyone in America to promote neo-Nazis, Holocaust deniers and other extremists. (Full article...) -
The More Hall Annex, formerly the Nuclear Reactor Building, was a building on the campus of the University of Washington (UW) in Seattle, Washington, United States, that once housed a functional nuclear research reactor. It was inaugurated in 1961 and shut down in 1988, operating at a peak of 100 kilowatts thermal (kWt), and was officially decommissioned in 2007.
The reactor was housed in a reinforced concrete building designed in the Brutalist architectural style by UW faculty members. They designed the reactor room with large windows that allowed observation from the outside, in an attempt to demonstrate the safety of nuclear energy. (Full article...) -
On 21 January 1968, an aircraft accident, sometimes known as the Thule affair or Thule accident (/ˈtuːli/; Danish: Thuleulykken), involving a United States Air Force (USAF) B-52 bomber occurred near Thule Air Base in the Danish territory of Greenland. The aircraft was carrying four B28FI thermonuclear bombs on a Cold War "Chrome Dome" alert mission over Baffin Bay when a cabin fire forced the crew to abandon the aircraft before they could carry out an emergency landing at Thule Air Base. Six crew members ejected safely, but one who did not have an ejection seat was killed while trying to bail out. The bomber crashed onto sea ice in North Star Bay, Greenland, causing the conventional explosives aboard to detonate and the nuclear payload to rupture and disperse, resulting in radioactive contamination of the area.
The United States and Denmark launched an intensive clean-up and recovery operation, but the secondary stage of one of the nuclear weapons could not be accounted for after the operation was completed. USAF Strategic Air Command "Chrome Dome" operations were discontinued immediately after the accident, which highlighted the safety and political risks of the missions. Safety procedures were reviewed, and more stable explosives were developed for use in nuclear weapons. (Full article...) -
Temple Sinai (officially the First Hebrew Congregation of Oakland) is a Reform Jewish congregation and synagogue located at 2808 Summit Street (28th and Webster Streets) in Oakland, California, in the United States. Founded in 1875, it is the oldest Jewish congregation in the East San Francisco Bay region.
Its early members included Gertrude Stein and Judah Leon Magnes, who studied at Temple Sinai's Sabbath school, and Ray Frank, who taught them. Originally traditional, the temple reformed its beliefs and practices under the leadership of Rabbi Marcus Friedlander (1893–1915). By 1914, it had become a Classical Reform congregation. That year the current sanctuary was built: a Beaux-Arts structure designed by G. Albert Lansburgh, which is the oldest synagogue building in Oakland. (Full article...) -
The 2005 Sugar Bowl was a postseason American college football bowl game between the Virginia Tech Hokies and the Auburn Tigers at the Louisiana Superdome in New Orleans, Louisiana, on January 3, 2005. It was the 71st edition of the annual Sugar Bowl football contest. Virginia Tech represented the Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC) in the contest, while Auburn represented the Southeastern Conference (SEC). In a defensive struggle, Auburn earned a 16–13 victory despite a late-game rally by Virginia Tech.
Virginia Tech was selected as a participant in the game after winning the ACC football championship during the team's first year in the conference. Tech, which finished 10–2 in the regular season prior to the Sugar Bowl, defeated 16th-ranked Virginia and ninth-ranked Miami en route to the game. Auburn finished the regular season undefeated at 12–0. The Tigers defeated fourth-ranked LSU and fifth-ranked Georgia during the course of the season, and were one of five teams to finish the regular season undefeated; the others were Southern California, Oklahoma, Utah, and Boise State, with USC and Oklahoma being selected to play in the Bowl Championship Series national championship game. Auburn, by virtue of its lower ranking in the BCS poll, was left out of the national championship and was selected to play in the Sugar Bowl. (Full article...) -
Megadeth is an American thrash metal band formed in Los Angeles in 1983 by vocalist/guitarist Dave Mustaine. Known for their technically complex guitar work and musicianship, Megadeth is one of the "big four" of American thrash metal along with Metallica, Anthrax and Slayer, responsible for the genre's development and popularization. Their music features complex arrangements and fast rhythm sections, dual lead guitars, and lyrical themes of war, politics, religion, death, and personal relationships.
In 1985, Megadeth released their debut album, Killing Is My Business... and Business Is Good!, on the independent record label Combat Records, to moderate success. It caught the attention of bigger labels, which led to Megadeth signing with Capitol Records. Their first major-label album, Peace Sells... but Who's Buying?, was released in 1986 and was a major hit with the underground metal scene. Band members' substance abuse issues and personal disputes had brought Megadeth negative publicity during the late 1980s. Nonetheless, the band went on to release a number of platinum-selling albums, including So Far, So Good... So What! (1988), Rust in Peace (1990) and Countdown to Extinction (1992). These albums, along with worldwide tours, brought them public recognition. Megadeth's most recent album, The Sick, the Dying... and the Dead!, was released in 2022. (Full article...) -
Jerome is a town in the Black Hills of Yavapai County in the U.S. state of Arizona. Founded in the late 19th century on Cleopatra Hill overlooking the Verde Valley, Jerome is approximately 100 miles (160 km) north of Phoenix along State Route 89A between Sedona and Prescott. Supported in its heyday by rich copper mines, it was home to more than 10,000 people in the 1920s. As of the 2020 census, its population was 464.
The town owes its existence mainly to two ore bodies that formed about 1.75 billion years ago along a ring fault in the caldera of an undersea volcano. Tectonic plate movements, plate collisions, uplift, deposition, erosion, and other geologic processes eventually exposed the tip of one of the ore bodies and pushed the other close to the surface, both near Jerome. In the late 19th century, the United Verde Mine, developed by William A. Clark, extracted ore bearing copper, gold, silver, and other metals from the larger of the two. The United Verde Extension UVX Mine, owned by James Douglas Jr., depended on the other huge deposit. In total, the copper deposits discovered in Jerome's vicinity were among the richest ever found. (Full article...) -
The cougar (Puma concolor) (/ˈkuːɡər/, KOO-gər), sometimes called the mountain lion, catamount, puma, or panther is a large small cat native to the Americas. It inhabits North, Central and South America, making it the most widely distributed wild, terrestrial mammal in the Western Hemisphere, and one of the most widespread in the world. Its range spans the Yukon, British Columbia and Alberta provinces of Canada, the Rocky Mountains and areas in the western United States. Further south, its range extends through Mexico to the Amazon Rainforest and the southern Andes Mountains in Patagonia. It is an adaptable generalist species, occurring in most American habitat types. It prefers habitats with dense underbrush and rocky areas for stalking but also lives in open areas.
The cougar is largely solitary. Its activity pattern varies from diurnality and cathemerality to crepuscularity and nocturnality between protected and non-protected areas, and is apparently correlated with the presence of other predators, prey species, livestock and humans. It is an ambush predator that pursues a wide variety of prey. Ungulates, particularly deer, are its primary prey, but it also hunts rodents. It is territorial and lives at low population densities. Individual home ranges depend on terrain, vegetation and abundance of prey. While large, it is not always the dominant apex predator in its range, yielding prey to other predators. It is reclusive and mostly avoids people. Fatal attacks on humans are rare but increased in North America as more people entered cougar habitat and built farms. (Full article...) -
The Brinks Hotel in Saigon, also known as the Brink Bachelor Officers Quarters (BOQ), was bombed by the Vietcong on the evening of 24 December 1964, during the Vietnam War. Two Vietcong operatives detonated a car bomb underneath the hotel, which housed United States Army officers. The explosion killed two Americans, an officer and an NCO, and injured approximately 60, including military personnel and Vietnamese civilians.
The Vietcong commanders had planned the venture with two objectives in mind. Firstly, by attacking an American installation in the center of the heavily guarded capital, the Vietcong intended to demonstrate their ability to strike in South Vietnam should the United States decide to launch air raids against North Vietnam. Secondly, the bombing would demonstrate to the South Vietnamese that the Americans were vulnerable and could not be relied upon for protection. (Full article...) -
Kolob Canyons from the end of Kolob Canyons Road. Stream erosion has incised the Kolob Plateau to form canyons that expose the red-orange colored Navajo Sandstone and other formations.
The geology of the Zion and Kolob canyons area includes nine known exposed formations, all visible in Zion National Park in the U.S. state of Utah. Together, these formations represent about 150 million years of mostly Mesozoic-aged sedimentation in that part of North America. Part of a super-sequence of rock units called the Grand Staircase, the formations exposed in the Zion and Kolob area were deposited in several different environments that range from the warm shallow seas of the Kaibab and Moenkopi formations, streams and lakes of the Chinle, Moenave, and Kayenta formations to the large deserts of the Navajo and Temple Cap formations and dry near shore environments of the Carmel Formation.
Subsequent uplift of the Colorado Plateau slowly raised these formations much higher than where they were deposited. This steepened the stream gradient of the ancestral rivers and other streams on the plateau. The faster-moving streams took advantage of uplift-created joints in the rocks to remove all Cenozoic-aged formations and cut gorges into the plateaus. Zion Canyon was cut by the North Fork of the Virgin River in this way. Lava flows and cinder cones covered parts of the area during the later part of this process. (Full article...) -
Californium is a synthetic chemical element; it has symbol Cf and atomic number 98. It was first synthesized in 1950 at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (then the University of California Radiation Laboratory) by bombarding curium with alpha particles (helium-4 ions). It is an actinide element, the sixth transuranium element to be synthesized, and has the second-highest atomic mass of all elements that have been produced in amounts large enough to see with the naked eye (after einsteinium). It was named after the university and the U.S. state of California.
Two crystalline forms exist at normal pressure: one above and one below 900 °C (1,650 °F). A third form exists at high pressure. Californium slowly tarnishes in air at room temperature. Californium compounds are dominated by the +3 oxidation state. The most stable of californium's twenty known isotopes is californium-251, with a half-life of 898 years. This short half-life means the element is not found in significant quantities in the Earth's crust. 252Cf, with a half-life of about 2.645 years, is the most common isotope used and is produced at Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) in the United States and Research Institute of Atomic Reactors in Russia. (Full article...) -
James Bryant Conant (March 26, 1893 – February 11, 1978) was an American chemist, a transformative President of Harvard University, and the first U.S. Ambassador to West Germany. Conant obtained a Ph.D. in chemistry from Harvard in 1916.
During World War I, he served in the U.S. Army, where he worked on the development of poison gases, especially Lewisite. He became an assistant professor of chemistry at Harvard University in 1919 and the Sheldon Emery Professor of Organic Chemistry in 1929. He researched the physical structures of natural products, particularly chlorophyll, and he was one of the first to explore the sometimes complex relationship between chemical equilibrium and the reaction rate of chemical processes. He studied the biochemistry of oxyhemoglobin providing insight into the disease methemoglobinemia, helped to explain the structure of chlorophyll, and contributed important insights that underlie modern theories of acid-base chemistry. (Full article...) -
Operation Transom was an attack by Allied forces against the Japanese-occupied city of Surabaya on the Indonesian island of Java during World War II. Conducted by the British-led Eastern Fleet, the operation took place on 17 May 1944 and involved American and British carrier-based aircraft bombing the city's docks and an oil refinery. An American torpedo bomber was shot down, and two British torpedo bombers were lost in accidents.
The attack on Surabaya was the second, and final, joint American-British aircraft carrier raid in the Indian Ocean during 1944. It was undertaken to divert Japanese forces from the Allied landing on Wakde island off New Guinea and make use of the American aircraft carrier on its return voyage to the Pacific. The warships involved in the operation sailed from Ceylon and refuelled in Western Australia before reaching the waters south of Java, where the carriers' aircraft were launched. On the morning of 17 May two groups of Allied aircraft made a coordinated attack on Surabaya's port and several industrial facilities that took the Japanese by surprise. American heavy bombers struck Surabaya that night and Australian aircraft laid mines in nearby waters; these aircraft operated from bases in northern Australia. (Full article...) -
Appalachian Spring is an American ballet created by the choreographer Martha Graham and the composer Aaron Copland, later arranged as an orchestral work. Commissioned by Elizabeth Sprague Coolidge, Copland composed the ballet music for Graham; the original choreography was by Graham, with costumes by Edythe Gilfond and sets by Isamu Noguchi. The ballet was well received at the 1944 premiere, earning Copland the Pulitzer Prize for Music during its 1945 United States tour. The orchestral suite composed in 1945 was played that year by many symphony orchestras; the suite is among Copland's best-known works, and the ballet remains essential in the Martha Graham Dance Company repertoire.
Graham was known for creating the "Graham technique" of dance; in the 1930s, she began commissioning scores from various composers, often related to American history and culture. Around the same time, Copland incorporated relatable and accessible musical characteristics of the Americana style to increase his music's appeal to the general public; he first implemented this in earlier ballets like Billy the Kid and Rodeo. The initial scenario for Appalachian Spring devised by Graham was revised many times by both her and Copland; the title characters' names were changed numerous times and other characters from the early revisions were cut in the final production. Originally orchestrated for a thirteen-piece chamber orchestra, the score was arranged into various suites by Copland for different purposes; the original ballet featured eight episodes, three of which were cut in the well-known orchestral suite. (Full article...) -
A nickel is a five-cent coin struck by the United States Mint. Composed of cupronickel (75% copper and 25% nickel), the piece has been issued since 1866. Its diameter is 0.835 inches (21.21 mm) and its thickness is 0.077 inches (1.95 mm).
The silver half dime, equal to five cents, was issued from 1792 to 1873 before today's cupronickel version. The American Civil War caused economic hardship, driving gold and silver from circulation; in response, in place of low-value coins, the government at first issued paper currency. In 1865, Congress abolished the five-cent fractional currency note after Spencer M. Clark, head of the Currency Bureau (today the Bureau of Engraving and Printing), placed his own portrait on the denomination. After the successful introduction of two-cent and three-cent pieces without precious metal, Congress also authorized a five-cent piece consisting of base metal; the Mint began striking this version in 1866. The initial design of the Shield nickel was struck from 1866 until 1883, then was replaced by the Liberty Head nickel. The Buffalo nickel was introduced in 1913 as part of a drive to increase the beauty of American coinage. (Full article...) -
The 4th Missouri Infantry Regiment was formed on April 28, 1862, and served in the Confederate States Army during the American Civil War. The infantry regiment did not see action at the Battle of Farmington on May 9, and the Battle of Iuka on September 19 despite being part of the Confederate force present at those battles. As part of Brigadier General Martin E. Green's brigade, the regiment participated in three charges against Union lines on October 3, 1862, during the Second Battle of Corinth. The following day, the regiment, along with the rest of Green's brigade, attacked the new Union lines. Despite initial success, the attack was repulsed by a Union counterattack. The regiment ceased to exist as a separate unit when it was combined with the 1st Missouri Infantry Regiment on November 7, 1862, to form the 1st and 4th Missouri Infantry Regiment (Consolidated).
The combined unit served in the Vicksburg campaign in 1863, before surrendering at the end of the siege of Vicksburg. After undergoing a prisoner exchange, the men rejoined the Confederate Army and served in the Atlanta Campaign and the Battle of Franklin in 1864, still as part of the 1st and 4th Missouri Infantry Regiment (Consolidated). On May 9, 1865, near the end of the war, the consolidated regiment surrendered during the Battle of Fort Blakeley, ending the unit's existence. The 4th Missouri Infantry's battle flag is displayed at the American Civil War Museum. (Full article...) -
Vannevar Bush (/væˈniːvɑːr/ van-NEE-var; March 11, 1890 – June 28, 1974) was an American engineer, inventor and science administrator, who during World War II headed the U.S. Office of Scientific Research and Development (OSRD), through which almost all wartime military R&D was carried out, including important developments in radar and the initiation and early administration of the Manhattan Project. He emphasized the importance of scientific research to national security and economic well-being, and was chiefly responsible for the movement that led to the creation of the National Science Foundation.
Bush joined the Department of Electrical Engineering at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in 1919, and founded the company that became Raytheon in 1922. Bush became vice president of MIT and dean of the MIT School of Engineering in 1932, and president of the Carnegie Institution of Washington in 1938. (Full article...) -
The 1st Missouri Field Battery was a field artillery battery that served in the Confederate States Army during the American Civil War. The battery was formed by Captain Westley F. Roberts in Arkansas in September 1862 as Roberts' Missouri Battery and was originally armed with two 12-pounder James rifles and two 6-pounder smoothbore guns. The unit fought in the Battle of Prairie Grove on December 7, as part of a Confederate offensive. Roberts' Battery withdrew after the battle and transferred to Little Rock, Arkansas, where Roberts resigned and was replaced by Lieutenant Samuel T. Ruffner.
During the middle of 1863, the unit, as Ruffner's Missouri Battery, was part of a force sent to the Mississippi River under the command of Colonel John Bullock Clark Jr., with the intent of harassing Union shipping. Clark's force was eventually recalled to Little Rock, which was being threatened by the Union Army of Arkansas under Major General Frederick Steele. The Confederates abandoned Little Rock on September 10, and Ruffner's Battery saw action during the retreat as part of the rear guard. After the retreat from Little Rock, Ruffner's Battery was temporarily assigned to Brigadier General John S. Marmaduke's cavalry division. The battery accompanied Marmaduke in an expedition against the Union garrison of Pine Bluff, Arkansas, seeing action at the Battle of Pine Bluff on October 25. (Full article...)
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- ... that one member of the U.S. Army Air Corps was so unimpressed by the Estoppey D-8 that he stated that he would rather use "nails and a wire"?
- ... that Mary Arthur McElroy was never given formal recognition as First Lady of the United States out of respect for Nell Arthur, the deceased wife of then-president Chester A. Arthur?
- ... that the Acoustic Atlas at Montana State University Library helped to create a public domain archive of sounds from Yellowstone National Park?
- ... that the United States won the 2023 CONCACAF Nations League final and extended a home unbeaten streak against Canada that dates back to 1957?
- ... that Andrew J. Evans Jr. was the highest-ranking United States Air Force prisoner during the Korean War?
- ... that during one of his Diddy parties, Sean Combs promised not to spill champagne on the Declaration of Independence?
- ... that Henry A. Henry brought an extensive library of Jewish literature when he emigrated to the United States in 1849?
- ... that David Gillespie became the chief surveyor of the United States boundary commission after the first surveyor was considered to be "insufferably arrogant"?
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Check: Harriet Taylor Upton (image courtesy of the National Museum of American History)A check from the National American Woman Suffrage Association, payable to Rachel Foster Avery, which was filled out by hand by the Association's treasurer Harriet Taylor Upton and countersigned by Susan B. Anthony as president and Alice Stone Blackwell as recording secretary.
NAWSA, formed on February 18, 1890, to work for women's suffrage in the United States, was formally led by Anthony between 1892 and 1900. During her presidency, the small organization focused predominantly on women's rights at the state level—much to Anthony's chagrin. It also sent delegates to the World's Congress of Representative Women at the World's Columbian Exposition. -
Photograph: Dorothea Lange. Restoration: Adam Cuerden.The Dust Bowl was a period of severe dust storms that greatly damaged the ecology and agriculture of the American and Canadian prairies during the 1930s. Drought and a failure to apply dryland farming methods to prevent wind erosion caused the phenomenon. The drought came in three waves, 1934, 1936, and 1939–1940, but some regions of the high plains experienced drought conditions for as many as eight years.
This photograph, titled Broke, baby sick, and car trouble!, was taken by Dorothea Lange in 1937 and depicts a Missouri migrant family's jalopy stuck near Tracy, California. -
Photograph: Unknown; Restoration: Chick BowenA pile of American bison skulls, waiting to be ground for fertilizer; a man stands atop the pile, with another in front of it. Bison, long a staple of Plains Indian tribal culture, were aggressively hunted by European settlers in the United States, nearly leading to the extinction of the species. -
Engraving credit: Bureau of Engraving and Printing; restored by Andrew ShivaTheodore Roosevelt (October 27, 1858 – January 6, 1919) was the 26th president of the United States from 1901 to 1909. He had previously been the 33rd governor of New York, from 1899 to 1900, and then the 25th vice president of the United States, from March to September 1901. As a leader of the Republican Party, he became a driving force for the Progressive Era in the United States in the early 20th century. In 1912, he ran for a third term as president. When he could not secure the Republican nomination, he formed his own party, the Progressive or "Bull Moose" Party, which drew enough votes away from the Republican nominee, incumbent President William Howard Taft, to give their Democratic opponent Woodrow Wilson a large victory in the electoral vote. Roosevelt was a distant cousin of the 32nd president, Franklin D. Roosevelt, and the uncle of Franklin's wife Eleanor Roosevelt. His face is depicted on Mount Rushmore, alongside George Washington, Thomas Jefferson and Abraham Lincoln.
This picture is a line engraving of Roosevelt, produced around 1902 by the Department of the Treasury's Bureau of Engraving and Printing (BEP) as part of a BEP presentation album of the first 26 presidents. -
Image: Northwestern Litho. Co.; Restoration: NativeForeignerA campaign poster from the 1900 United States presidential election for the incumbent William McKinley, who would eventually win. The poster shows McKinley standing on a gold coin, representing the gold standard, with support from soldiers, businessmen, farmers and professionals, claiming to restore prosperity at home and victory abroad. The election was a repeat of the 1896 election, pitting McKinley against William Jennings Bryan. -
Photograph credit: Aaron Allmon IIThe Lockheed F-117 Nighthawk is a semi-retired American single-seat, twin-engine stealth and attack aircraft that was developed by Lockheed's secretive Skunk Works division and operated by the United States Air Force. Its maiden flight took place in 1981, and it was the first operational aircraft to be designed around stealth technology. This F-117 was photographed flying over Nellis Air Force Base in Nevada. -
Document: Constitutional Convention; scan: National ArchivesThe first page of the original handwritten text of the United States Constitution, which took almost four months to draft and over three years to ratify. The first Constitutional Convention began on May 25, 1787, with a quorum at the Pennsylvania State House in Philadelphia to revise the Articles of Confederation. Instead the delegates wrote a new constitution, finishing on September 17 of that year, but its ratification by all 13 states was not completed until January 10, 1791. Since then 27 amendments have been made.
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Photo credit: US Bureau of ReclamationThe Central Arizona Project Aqueduct is a diversion canal in Arizona in the United States. The aqueduct diverts water from the Colorado River from Lake Havasu City into central and southern Arizona.
The Central Arizona Project is a multipurpose water resource development and management project that was designed to provide water to nearly one million acres of Indian and non-Indian irrigated agricultural land areas as well as municipal water for several Arizona communities. -
Engraving credit: Bureau of Engraving and Printing; restored by Andrew ShivaZachary Taylor (November 24, 1784 – July 9, 1850) was the 12th president of the United States, serving from March 4, 1849, until his death in office the following year. He was previously a career officer in the United States Army, rose to the rank of major general and became a national hero as a result of his victories in the Mexican–American War. As a result, he won election to the White House despite his vague political beliefs.
On July 4, 1850, Taylor reportedly consumed copious amounts of raw fruit and iced milk while attending holiday celebrations during a fundraising event at the Washington Monument. Over the course of several days, he became severely ill with an unknown digestive ailment, several of his cabinet members being similarly affected. Despite treatment, Taylor died five days later. His vice-president Millard Fillmore assumed the presidency and completed his term in office. -
Photo credit: United States ArmyAfter being forced to leave the Philippines after the Japanese victory in 1942, General Douglas MacArthur vowed, "I shall return." 31 months later, he waded ashore at Palo Beach at the outset of the Battle of Leyte, fulfilling his pledge as the United States retook the island. -
Photograph: Unknown; Restoration: Adam CuerdenWilliam H. Seward (1801–1872) was United States Secretary of State from 1861 to 1869, and earlier served as Governor of New York and United States Senator. A determined opponent of the spread of slavery in the years leading up to the American Civil War, he was a dominant figure in the Republican Party in its formative years, and was generally praised for his work on behalf of the Union as Secretary of State during the American Civil War. His firm stance against foreign intervention in the Civil War helped deter Britain and France from entering the conflict, which might have led to the independence of the Confederate States. His contemporary Carl Schurz described Seward as "one of those spirits who sometimes will go ahead of public opinion instead of tamely following its footprints." -
Image credit: Astrokey44An animated image showing the U.S. states by date of statehood, that is, the date when each U.S. state joined the Union. Although the first 13 states can be considered to be members of the United States from the date of the Declaration of Independence, they are presented here as being "admitted" on the date each ratified the present United States Constitution. The secession of states to form the Confederacy is not addressed here. -
Photograph: Frank SchulenburgThe Point Cabrillo Light is a lighthouse in northern California, United States, between Point Arena and Cape Mendocino, just south of the community of Caspar. It is part of the California state park system as Point Cabrillo Light Station State Historic Park. Completed in 1909, the lighthouse was manned by the United States Coast Guard from 1939 until it was automated in 1973. Beginning in 1996, the station was restored to the state it would have been in the 1930s. -
Check used for the Alaska PurchaseCheck: William H. Seward; scan: Our Documents initiativeThe check used for the Alaska Purchase, issued on August 1, 1868, and signed by US Secretary of State William H. Seward. For a total of $7.2 million, the United States government purchased Russian America from the Russian Empire (represented here by Russian Minister to the United States Eduard de Stoeckl). The lands involved became the modern state of Alaska in 1959. -
Photograph credit: UnknownBessie Coleman (1892–1926) was a civil aviator. On June 15, 1921, she became the first African-American woman and the first Native American to earn an aviation pilot's license. Denied opportunity in the United States because of her race and sex, she had to go to France to learn to fly. Her career involved stunt flying and performing in air shows, and was cut short in 1926 when she was thrown from a plane in mid-air. Her death meant that her ambition to establish a school for young black aviators went unaccomplished, but her pioneering achievements served as an inspiration for a generation of African-American men and women.
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Selected culture biography -
Active since 1983, he played various instruments in rock bands throughout the Midwest until 1989 when Greek composer Yanni hired him for his next tour, sight unseen, based on a tape of his own compositions. He was a featured concert keyboardist with Yanni through six major tours and appears in the 1994 multi-platinum album and video, Yanni Live at the Acropolis. Joseph then reunited with Yanni in 2003 for the 60-city Ethnicity tour. He also spent four years as musical director and lead keyboardist for Sheena Easton, including a 1995 performance on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno.
In 1994, Joseph's solo career began when he independently released Hear the Masses, featuring many of his Yanni bandmates. This debut release was followed by Rapture, an instrumental album recorded with a 50-piece orchestra, in which Joseph wrote and conducted all of the scores. It was released on the Narada label and reached NAV's "Airwaves Top 30". He has produced 15 albums, DVDs, and numerous piano books under his own record label, Robbins Island Music. Two of these albums, Christmas Around the World and One Deep Breath, also held positions on NAV’s Top 100 radio chart. His music is included in numerous various-artist compilation albums, most recently the 2008 release of The Weather Channel Presents: Smooth Jazz II.
Selected location -
The centers of all three branches of the U.S. federal government are located in the District, as are many of the nation's monuments and museums. Washington, D.C., is governed by a mayor and a 13-member city council. However, the United States Congress has supreme authority over the city and may overturn local laws. Residents of the District therefore have less self-governance than residents of the states.
Selected quote -
Anniversaries for March 21
- 1859 – The Zoological Society of Philadelphia, the first such society in the United States, isincorporated.
- 1952 – Alan Freed presents the Moondog Coronation Ball, the first rock and roll concert, in Cleveland, Ohio.
- 1963 – Alcatraz (pictured), a federal penitentiary on an island in San Francisco Bay, closes.
- 1965 – Martin Luther King Jr. leads 3,200 people on the start of the third civil rights march from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama.
- 1970 – The first Earth Day proclamation is issued by San Francisco Mayor Joseph Alioto.
- 1980 – President Jimmy Carter announces a United States boycott of the 1980 Summer Olympics in Moscow to protest the Soviet Invasion of Afghanistan.
Selected cuisines, dishes and foods -
Soul food is the ethnic cuisine of African Americans. Originating in the American South from the cuisines of enslaved Africans transported from Africa through the Atlantic slave trade, soul food is closely associated with the cuisine of the Southern United States. The expression "soul food" originated in the mid-1960s when "soul" was a common word used to describe African-American culture. Soul food uses cooking techniques and ingredients from West African, Central African, Western European, and Indigenous cuisine of the Americas. (Full article...)
Selected panorama -
Portland at night
More did you know? -
- ... that the Catskills' Esopus Creek (pictured, near Shandaken) is one of the most productive trout streams in the Northeast?
- ... that although the Anacostia Waterfront Corporation was created in 2004 to implement a 20-year, $8 billion redevelopment plan in Washington, D.C., it was abolished after just three years?
- ... that Max Desfor's image Flight of Refugees Across Wrecked Bridge in Korea was taken during the longest retreat in the military history of the United States?
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